HuffPost for Facebook -- The Future of Social News

HuffPost has a long history of deep and innovative integration with Facebook. In 2009 we launched HuffPost Social News, which let Facebook users who are HuffPost fans share more easily with each other and follow their friends' activity across the site.

At the beginning of this year we challenged ourselves to build the next generation of this integration. We were inspired by Zynga, which radically changed the game industry by building from the ground up on Facebook's platform. How could this happen for news and media? -- we asked ourselves. We set off on a course to build an app on Facebook's platform that would provide social news from the ground up.

The end result: HuffPost for Facebook. We're launching the mobile version now with a desktop version soon to come. It's an app like no other on Facebook, instantly personalized as soon as you connect. It shows news articles your friends are reading, commenting on and liking, as well as stories not yet popular with your friends but that match your own interests. We've also enlisted Patch, with over 800 hyperlocal sites across America, to find local stories you'll care about, as well as stories and video from across the entire AOL Huffington Post Media Group.

This app is in line with a great defining characteristic of HuffPost, which is to combine technology and editorial together to engage our audience more deeply.

Over the years we've learned a tremendous amount by diving into machine learning and creating what we believe is the most sophisticated comments system on the web. We can not only find abusive comments in real time, but also the informative, the interesting, the funny and the insightful -- in real time.

We've learned to parse the stream of information from Facebook timelines, walls, shares and likes and do some very complex machine learning to find stories that you'll find interesting. It all comes to you through HuffPost for Facebook.

We've also created a new way for our community to better engage with each other by giving badges for strong participation, and then giving the best users the ability to give other members badges and so on.

In short, we are really very excited about this launch. It's the result of years of experimentation and building on success, and like everything we do, it will evolve constantly and rapidly as we learn from your reactions to it, your engagement with it, and your opinions.

To start using HuffPost For Facebook, get out a mobile device -- iPhone, iPad, Android or Blackberry -- and click this link here.

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Follow Paul Berry on Twitter: www.twitter.com/teamreboot

Comments

[heroine addict]

11:35 AM on 10/11/2011

Why not focus on just coding an HP iPhone app that doesn't crash constantly Arriana? I've used the app for years but with the recent update it has become impossible to read even a single article without the app crashing. I'm not alone here, there are hundreds of other users who have reported the same problems on the iTunes review pages, resulting in the current 1.5 star rating.

[moonflowerjewelry]

11:30 AM on 10/11/2011

This is absurd, and I'll be surprised if it has many takers. I have a diverse group of friends, and I keep my fb friend list very small. I don't want everyone to know what I am posting here. I've refused all along to link fb to my hp. For those people who have a lot of acquaintance -friends, business-friends, student-friends, etc, and loose security settings, how much of your politics do you really want out in the atmosphere?

[Caniculus]

10:00 AM on 10/11/2011

There is something very important that Arianna doesn't get or refuses to acknowledge: many of us who post here could get fired from our jobs for our political views. That's why some of us use pseudonyms. So publicizing our views under our own names on FB could be ruinous.

I know that the NSA could easily discover our identity via the Patriot Act, but there's no sense handing them that information. FB is a system of self-profiling on an unprecedented scale. Some of us are old enough to remember when the FBI kept secret "files" on some of us. Now, it isn't the FBI, it's FB, and they've found a way to get us to keep the files on ourselves.

Oh, and in case anyone at HuffPo is reading this, then they should know that if they ever force me to login with my FB (or Twitter or Google+) accounts, I'm outa here.

BTW, does anyone know of a comprehensive news site like HuffPo -- like HuffPo used to be -- where anonymity is respected?

[Halsey]

05:43 PM on 10/11/2011

I, too, caniculus would like to find an HP more like the one I signed up with in 2006. Anonymous, but still interesting and a degree of almost intimacy. I now see, especially with the AOL merger, that it is mega business wanting to grow and grow exponentially. Maybe Paris HP is fine or over 50 is okay..but so many articles are just links to other outlets, from TMZ to People to AOL (travel).
And I KNOW every time I click on, within a day an add will show up on MY HP page with some topic related to what I've viewed. FB creeps me out...and now FB banging WallMart...too big to fail? Sadly..HP is heading there. So, I suggest TruthDig (yes there IS a FB "like" or "share" tab but just a tab. I am closer and closer to just using Truthdig as my venting outlet.
Quid pro Quo :-)
fanned #182!

[Jessica Matistic]

09:53 AM on 10/11/2011

I don't know about anyone else but I don't understand how this works as an app in Facebook and there is no explanation anywhere. I saw the article about the launch on my iPhone Facebook newsfeed, clicked on the link provided in the article, and it let me view the new app format. However, it's not accessible from my iPhone Facebook like any other app. I downloaded the new Facebook iPhone update last night, too. You can clearly see a list of all your apps in the new iPhone Facebook release but the HuffPost app isn't there. So how do you add it!?!

[LPH]

08:15 AM on 10/11/2011

Yuck.

[General Public]

06:35 AM on 10/11/2011

I tried it out in my web browser... the regular HuffingtonPost.com is much more easy to navigate and use, and it has all the stories, while your version for Facebook only lists a few stories on the left, plus it doesn't let you comment. Your project needs some more work before it's even remotely as good as just using the HuffingtonPost.com website the way it is. OK sure, there are less ads, but there's less of EVERYTHING... including less articles to choose from and look at, and no way to comment on them or see comments. Yes, I can see how many people recommended a story on Facebook, and whichever story got the most of those "Likes" is the one I see first, but besides that, it's really not very impressive. OK, so my web browser doesn't give you my location, maybe you need location-aware browsing turned on, but still... there's no "THERE" there. Your "app" excludes over 90% of the articles from this site, and basically REMOVES all the useful features of this website without adding ANYTHING worthwhile except maybe this thing about showing what your friends or people near you are reading. This site is fine the way it is, don't mess it up.

[cccoyote]

04:09 AM on 10/11/2011

Lately, the corporate head behind this place is rearing up in so many ways.

[Ashutosh Nigam]

03:56 AM on 10/11/2011

this is really an awesome post ......thanks for sharing

[Bruce Joseph]

02:06 AM on 10/11/2011

You (HP) think this alliance is a good thing? WRONG!!! I do not want my HP comments and rants posted on Facebook. I use Facebook to reconnect with old friends, but I do not feel the need to share every detail of my online life with them.

It's like hitting "Reply All" every time you respond to email. Not a good idea at all.

[TarzanaGirl]

08:56 PM on 10/11/2011

AGREED!!!! Not every Huff Poster has a FaceBook account and vice versa. Facebook has had problems with "identity theft" and "shared personal info."

[ScottishScript]

02:01 AM on 10/11/2011

I absolutely refuse to use Facebook, so it's not my future. In fact I wish people would strop trying to alter my future.

[planetjeffy]

02:50 AM on 10/11/2011

I agree
I set up facebook campaign for my clients business accounts
but I don't want to be barraged by my Jr High School classmates for a chat

[R.W. Sanders]

02:01 AM on 10/11/2011

I guess this is where I show my age. I just don't want a machine deciding what I might like or not like. To me, that is just too much big brother in my life. I realize that the "real" big brother, thanks to the Patriot Act and it's ilk, can look into almost anything of mine, without my knowledge. I don't like that either, but I seem powerless to fix that. But I can fix Facebook, and I can do that by refusing to use it or engage it any more than absolutely necessary. Somehow, if I let this machinery make my decisions it just feels like surrender to the system. And perhaps I might actually benefit from engaging with this latest technology, but again, it just feels creepy and somehow undignified.

In my day, the sixties, it was easy to perceive the generation gap. We flaunted it in numerous ways. But today's gap may be best defined by technology and our willingness to accept it into our lives. There is a definite Orwellian element. And though I may well adapt sometime in the future, for now I'll ride off into the sunset on my dinosaur.

[Draekia]

02:12 AM on 10/11/2011

I think it's pretty annoying and is only furthering the echo chamber effect so many get trapped in. Maybe growing up when the Internet still had a veil of privacy makes even me a bit of a dinosaur now. I actually value control over who knows what about me/what I want to know/read.

[Parade Keegan]

03:59 AM on 10/11/2011

Thank you, I feel it's 'big brother' and controlling and creepy and invasive and 'citizen reporters' are reactionary and emotional with bias news reporting IMO. I expressed this exact opinion when this article first posted and 'the powers that be' didn't post it. Censored?

[fairwayhill]

02:00 AM on 10/11/2011

HuffPost for Facebook app couldn't make Big Brother happier.

[Anybodyseenthepopos]

03:00 AM on 10/11/2011

Holy Crow I can't believe I actually agree with one of your posts. First time.

[fairwayhill]

01:54 AM on 10/11/2011

I dumped Facebook a long time ago.

[pinkpantheroz]

12:31 AM on 10/11/2011

I am getting thoroughly fed up with all this cross-promotion. I like and respect Huffo. I do NOT like AOL, I don't have an account or even wish to use Facebook, ever. I do not Tweet or have a very expensive mobile phone with all the bells and whistles. I am not a tragic whose whole life centers around finding friends, following anyone, nor badge collecting. I have a resonable life with real live friends, who either use the telephone or email me. Everybody, please GROW UP and stop spending your hard-earned on something which may never be of real use to you!!

[PunKinPai]

12:19 AM on 10/11/2011

My local newspaper just stopped letting people comment using pseudonymsand now require you log in with Facebook first. That'll be just peachy when I want to criticize my town's police officers or make a comment my family wouldn't approve of. The last thing I want is for my FB friends to be bugged with every comment I make, whether on a newspaper article or on an HP blog. Even less do I want to read all of theirs.